


What Makes Your Heart Beat So?

by coffeeguru



Series: Do I Dare Disturb The Universe? [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dalish Origin, Gen, Origin Story, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 15:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4142193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeguru/pseuds/coffeeguru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The origin of Rowan Lavellan, eventual Herald of Andraste and Inquisitor, and the father that inspired her and haunts her still.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Makes Your Heart Beat So?

**Author's Note:**

> A HUGE thank you to [Eisen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisen/pseuds/Eisen) for reading this over, and keeping my insanity at a manageable level. Read everything he's got. You won't be disappointed. 
> 
> Elvhen translations at the end of the fic.

Their lives began with a death.

Revasan stood over her grave, a bundle of arbor blessing in his hand.  “Ir abelas, ‘ma vhenan.  I couldn’t save you.  I tried.  Creators, I tried,” he whispered, broken.  Falling to his knees, flowers forgotten, the tears streamed down his face.

“How am I supposed to go on without you?” The hole in his heart was tangible, a bleeding, aching wound that would not, could not heal.  The clan had left him to his grief, not understanding his attachment to this woman who held his life in her gentle palms.  She was a crazy shemlen to them, an anathema who left her own city comforts to live a nomadic life with one of the People.  They never accepted her, never did more than look askance no matter how hard she tried to be a part of them.

The Keeper had pulled him aside when he brought her home, dreams of something beautiful with her among the Lavellan clan shattered.  “Why do you embarrass yourself and your family with this quick-blooded female, Lethal’lin?  She is not of the Dalish, she can never be, and any children you may have with her are more half-blooded shems.  Release her to her people and forget this  foolishness.”

He had always been even-keeled, though he knew that his tolerance of, and in fact fascination with, the other cultures of Thedas had always been a matter of consternation with the others in the clan.  He would not, however, let the slight from the Keeper stand.  “There will be no discussion of her leaving. None.  She is my wife, and will be until we are guided unto death.  I have broken no rule, done nothing other than follow my heart to her, and if this cannot be accepted by the clan, I will simply find one that is not so narrow-minded as this to ply my trade in.”

Linayel blanched at the thought. A healer with abilities like Revasan’s was something that came along once in a century.  “No.  That will not be necessary.  While I urge you to reconsider, there will be no more talk of her leaving from any of us.  The road you have chosen is not an easy one, however, and that is not something I can smooth for you, nor would I wish to.”  With that, the matter appeared closed between Keeper and Healer, and his choice of spouse was not spoken of again between them, until the day she died.

“We must move from this place lest the shem say we have done something to bring about her end.  Bury her quickly, and we will leave this place and her memory behind.”

“She is my wife!” he exclaimed.  “Her soul has barely left her body and you are telling me to abandon her like carrion for the crows!”

“You made your choices when you brought her here.  You will accept this decision from your Keeper to move.  That is within my rights to protect the clan.  If you wish more time you must travel on your own to rejoin us.”

“That is what will happen.  I will not leave her. Not yet. Not. . . .”

He stared at the mound of earth where the body of the woman who encompassed his being would stay until the world itself was dust.  No one would know her beauty, he would never feel her heart beat again.  Her eyes, blue like the sky in the summer, would never see another sunrise.  The thoughts were daggers, and he wanted to rail against the Gods who would take her, not just from him, but from a world that was made brighter by her being.  “Why?”  He looked up into the heavens, where no revelation was at hand.

It was the noise from the brush below the hillock he had chosen that gave him an unexpected answer.  Startled at the cry, he looked away from her grave and saw a flash of movement as a figure ran into the woods.  Revasan stood and made to follow when he heard the cry again.  He followed it to its source, a witchwood tree that stood gnarled and ancient at the treeline.  At its base, a basket, worn and city-made, held a milk-pale infant, perfectly pointed ears revealing its heritage.  Its little face was screwed tightly as it cried out, making its presence known to the grief-stricken healer.

Instinctively, he reached down and picked up the baby, cradling it close.  “Shh, esha’lin. Everything will be okay, precious one.” Fat tears rolled from the corner of its eyes, and he saw in the newborn a kindred spirit, someone suffering from earth-shattering loss, who could do nothing but cry out at the pain and injustice.  

His own tears fell onto the swaddling as he held it tight.  “You are not alone.  I’m here.  You’re safe.”  How sadly desperate the mother must have been to abandon her child to a stranger.  Unless. . .unless somehow he had misinterpreted the situation, and the woman would be back for her baby.

To be certain, he waited until dusk fell before making the decision to move on and rejoin the clan.  He sat with the infant in his arms before his wife’s grave, unwilling to let go of the woman he had loved before he absolutely had to.  He told the baby, a girl, he found, when he had to change her, of the wife he had met while visiting the city.

She had heard him singing one of the songs he had learned in the inn he had stopped by, a nonsensical tune, really.  But he always had an ear for music, and the sight of an elf with strange tattoos singing something that was so fully human drew her to him in a way she could never explain.  He joked with her later that he would learn every song from every nation if it kept her by his side, but somehow the jest became the truth, and he learned tunes in every city he visited, from anyone who would teach a Dalish a song.

He did all this for the woman he had fallen in love with, and who had willingly followed him into a self-imposed exile, because her heart couldn’t bear parting from him. She understood the importance of his role in the life of the Lavellan clan.  She never even asked if he would leave them for her.

Once he began speaking, the baby had stopped crying, and seemed intent on listening to every word he said.  She had opened her eyes, and they stared at him, deep and blue and belonging to a being older than himself.  They didn’t belong in a creature less than a month old.  But she seemed to absorb everything he said, taking his words into herself and making them part of who she was.

As the shadows lengthened and it became apparent that the mother was not returning, and his sorrow would not ease, a decision was made.  “Da’lin, you are coming home with me,” he said to the bundle in his arms.  He turned towards the grave he had watered with his tears, and gave it a small smile.  “We could not have a child of our blood, vhenan, but this little one will know you as her mother. Your beauty will live on in her.”

He looked down at where he had found the child, and knew her name.  Revasan took a cutting from the tree and planted it over the remains of his wife, as a memorial, and as a symbol of the life that just began.  “Your existence will not be easy with me, Asha’lan.  I am more sorry for that than you know.  But I will love you with all I have, my little Rowan.”

\------

She never lost that ageless look to her, where she seemed to see more than what was in front of her.  The downside to this was that she took in everything that the clan said about her, her father, and the woman she never knew but thought of as her mother.  It hurt her, Revasan could see that, but when he tried to comfort her, she just smiled at him sadly.  “I’m okay, Babae.  Are you okay?”

He would bundle her in his arms, they would sit in whatever glade the clan had settled in, and he would tell her legends of the lands he had visited throughout his life.  “And there are dwarves, Da’lin.  Children of the Stone who cannot touch the Fade, but oh, what wonders they can create.  They hear the songs the cliffs and mountains sing, and they find the hidden treasures in the veins.”

“What of the shemlen, Bae?”

“Do not use that term, please, ‘ma vhenan,” he gently admonished.  “As we do not wish to be called by the shape of our ears, we do not want to call others by names which are not their own.”

“So. . .humans?”

“Yes, Da’lin.  Humans.  Like your mother.  Beautiful creatures, unique in their history and culture as we are in ours.  Harsh and horrible, wonderful and gentle.  We are not so different as our tales would make us.  Have I told you of the one they call the Maker, and the human He took as His Bride?”  And so he told her, and she learned, and she believed.  Because her mother believed. Because as she grew, her father brought her tales from the cities, and taught her to translate the words on the page into stories of great and small things.  And because Andraste’s tales taught her of a normal woman who spoke to her God, and he spoke back.  That maybe if she spoke to them, someone would reply when she needed.

She grew and learned, a member of the clan, but always on the outskirts, as he was.  But he never heard her complain.  Even when the nightmares came.  

Oh, she woke up screaming in the night, a child faced with the horrors of the Fade, unfiltered by time and training.  And he knew that she was destined for something greater and worse than he could have hoped for.  So when she ran to him, tears streaming down her face, he took her out under the stars, and sang to her until the terror abated.

 

Dún do shúil, a rún mo chroí

A chuid den tsaol, 's a ghrá liom

Dún do shúil, a rún mo chroí

Agus gheobhair feirín amárach

 

Tá an samhradh ag teacht le grian is le teas

Agus duilliúr ghlas ar phrátaí

Tá an ghaoth ag teacht go fial aneas

Agus gheobhaimid iasc amárach

 

Slowly, slowly she calmed down, the sobs dying away as she listened to the words of the song.  It was a lullaby his own mother sang to him, and it always seemed to work to keep the spirits at bay.  Eventually her eyes drifted closed, the demons content to stop tormenting his daughter for the evening, it seemed.

These evening events became more and more frequent as time past. At last, as he suspected would happen, her power manifested in her tenth year.  And, like most things with his little daughter, it was not in the normal manner of things, where something would explode, or catch on fire.  One day, she was simply sitting on a log, eating an apple, and then she stared at it intently. Suddenly, the apple was rimed with frost, as though winter had wrapped itself around it in an instant.

She blinked at the fruit in her hand.  “Babae?” she called out, and he was there in a moment by her side.  He was never far from her, this gift of a child that had been granted to him.  Wordlessly, she handed the apple to him.

“What-oh.  I see.”  He held it up, examining it closely.  “Well, Da’lin.  I believe you’ve come into your powers.  I thought it might happen soon.”

“Powers?”  She looked down at her hands, which had already lost the chubbiness of childhood, and were well on their way to being the long and slender fingers of her adult self. “Am I a mage, Babae?”

“That you are, my little one.” He tossed the apple in the air, and caught it, frost sprinkling off, sparkling in the sunlight. “And if this is any indication, a fairly powerful one.”

She was quiet, thoughtful.  Rowan always seemed to think deeply when something confused or worried her.  “Will I become. . .will the demons. . .will I hurt anyone?”  Those eyes, so large and all-seeing, were filled with trepidation.

The fruit forgotten, he gathered her up in his arms. “Da’lath’in, I don’t think you could hurt anyone if you tried. And the Keeper is here, and she will help you, will train you.”

“Can’t you train me, teach me to heal like you do?” Her voice was muffled in his shoulder, but he could hear something akin to despair.  She knew the answer before she asked.

“My talent doesn’t come from the Fade.  It is only through the right mixtures and applications that I’m able to heal.”  He pulled her back so he could talk to her directly, and brushed her wild brown hair out of her eyes.  “You have a path for healing, too.  But it lies elsewhere, different from mine.  And for right now, we need to have you concentrate on making sure you control your abilities.”  His voice was gentle, soothing.  “It won’t be easy, my love, but I believe in you.”

She studied his face for a minute, and saw the truth there.  Taking a deep breath and exhaling, she seemed to come to a conclusion.  “Okay.  I love you, Babae.”  She flung herself back into his arms, a spontaneous expression that was very rare with her, his little girl who was so deliberate with everything she did.

“I love you too, Asha’lan.”  He held her tight, tears threatening at the trials he knew were to follow for her.  “So very much.”

\-----

Istimaethoriel, the new Keeper of the Lavellan clan, looked down at her recent charge with something akin to dismay.  The child was too quiet, and not in the way the hunters were quiet when stalking prey.  She was almost supernaturally silent in the way she held herself, waiting for the Keeper to give her some instruction.

“Alright, Rowan. Now, remember, you need to focus on what you want to touch with your magic.”  Before the child sat four balls: one red, one blue, one purple, one green.  “Each one of these is a different focus: fire, ice, lightning, and spirit.  Which one calls to you?” Deshanna knew the answer, even as the little mage squinted at the orbs.  The blue one rose up about a foot off of the table, and spun, before snow seemed to burst for from the center of it, and it was suspended in a sphere of flakes for a moment, finally coming to rest in the girl’s outstretched hand.

What the Keeper didn’t expect was the green ball, which should have lain quietly on the table, suddenly glowing and rolling off the surface, as if propelled away by the other magic.  Rowan’s eyes grew wider.  “What does that mean, Keeper?” she breathed.

Deshanna picked the ball from where it had stopped in the corner of her tent.  It was once again just a normal green ball, buzzing only lightly with the power of the spell that was contained within.  “I’m not sure,” she said absently, staring at it.  Realizing she had spoken aloud, she was quick to add, “Likely nothing.” The girl was powerful, and perhaps just had a spark of spirit talent around her, which set off the ball.  To read more into it, to see portents or prophecy, was to give the odd outsider child more credit than she should be due.

She had already been reluctant to train the girl, but Keeper Linayel had warned her that the healer held two things in the highest regard: helping those who needed it, regardless of race or status, and his daughter.  To cross him in either of those would be akin to assuring the clan would no longer have a follower of Sylaise in their midst, and they would either have to rely on shemlen to treat them, or go without and hope that too many did not die before a new healer was found at the Arlathvhen, which was still years off.

So, she took the child in, and prayed to the Creators for strength in training an outsider, no matter the shape of her ears, in the way of the ala'syl'ise'man'thanelan.  She placed the ball back on the table, where it sparked again, shuddered, but didn’t roll away a second time.  Yes, likely a bit of spirit to her magic.  That was all.

\------

“Now, Rowan!”  The Keeper had been admonishing her all day, browbeating her with lessons she hadn’t been prepared for, had no idea were coming.  She saw nothing but red as she tried to pull the spirit-based spell from the core of her being, but it wasn’t there.  Sweat poured into her eyes as she wielded her staff, trying to pull the barrier between herself and the older woman.  Instead she got hit again with a blow of force that sent her flying.  

She tasted blood; she had bitten her tongue this time; ironic, since not biting her tongue was likely how she had gotten into the situation she was currently in.  Deshanna had finally asked her what Vallaslin she was taking.  She had successfully avoided answering the question for weeks, but the Keeper had finally run out of patience.  “What will it be, girl?”

“Banal,” she said quietly.  

“What?”

“Nothing. I choose no Vallaslin, Keeper.”

The woman rounded on her.  “That is not an option.  You will choose a Vallaslin, as we all have.  You will give yourself to one of the Creators.  That is the way of things.  You are my First; how can you expect to contain our culture if you do not take one of the very things that makes us different from the shem?” 

“Different from them, Keeper, or different from everyone, including our brothers and sisters in the alienages?  They don’t take the markings upon their face.  Are they less Elvhen than we?”  Like her father, Rowan tended to maintain a calm, at least on the outside.  This discontentment with her clan, adopted or not, had been growing for some time, however.  And it was always made worse when they simultaneously reminded her that she was other and told her that she needed to be more like them.

“They are not Dalish.  They do not understand our ways. They have lost them to shem cities and quick-blooded rituals.”  The Keeper through her hands up in the air.  “Bah, this is more of your father’s doing.  He spends too much time with other cultures, and not enough with his own people.  And it only brings him pain.”

Rowan could not hold her temper any longer.  Her eyes flashed, and it actually had Istimaethoriel taking a step back before she caught herself.  “The pain that he suffers is because of you, because of this clan, because of his own family treating him as pariah, as something lesser because his heart and mind are more open than yours are collectively.”  Frost formed on her fingertips, and ice trailed in her wake as she approached the Keeper.  

“You have named me as your First because you had no choice.  I know that you did not want to, but there were no others who had the power and skill that I do.  But I will not be taking the Vallaslin; I will not hide myself behind mysteries and half-truths for a history we do not fully comprehend.”  She balled her fists, pulled the magic back into herself; losing control was not the way to argue.

“I am still your student, and you are my teacher. I still wish to learn from you.  But if my passage to adulthood revolves around markings on my skin, then I have completed that transition and come through bare-faced.”  With that, she stepped back, and sat before the Keeper, as she had so many times before over the years.  “Teach me as you will.”

She had shamed Deshanna, even though no one had seen their altercation, and that would not stand.  Rowan knew this, but she could not be brought to heel for something she believed in so strongly.   As she lay on the ground, stunned, shaking the haze from her vision, she came to the full realization that there was never going to acceptance for her among these people.  She would serve them faithfully, unto death, but they would never see her as anything but an interloper on their idealistic and isolated existence.

Not a single one came to her aid as she bled; no one dared interfere with the Keeper and her ‘lessons.’ “Get up, teldirthalelan ,” the woman hissed, as Rowan struggled to stand.  A commotion from the crowd drew her attention, and she saw her father pushing through the throng of elves.

“Istimaethoriel, enough!” he shouted, and the Keeper hesitated mid-spell.

“Babae, no,” his daughter said weakly, finally on her feet.  “This is her right as my teacher.  If she wishes to instruct in this manner, so be it.  It is the agreement we have made.”  Deshanna’s mistake was in repeating the same spell, and this time Rowan was ready as the blow came.  As quickly as the spell was enacted, the younger elf wrapped the power in a coating of ice and deflected it harmlessly behind her, into an ancient tree that shook at the impact.  She shot back with a ball of frozen flame, hitting the Keeper squarely in the chest and staggering her backwards.  Only the two of them knew that she had pulled the spell to avoid damaging the other woman, and it enraged her.  

“Fen’harel ver na.”  The assembled gasped at the curse, but Rowan let it roll over her.  If the Dread Wolf planned on taking her, it would be no worse than the future that awaited her among the Lavellan.

“As you say, Amelan.” Rowan laid her staff at the other woman’s feet, giving her the victory it seemed she so desperately needed.  It meant nothing to her to acquiesce, and it stole the taste of triumph from the other, leaving only ashes in its wake.  Without another word, she turned and walked away, holding herself together until she had reached the edge of the forest and could run and hide to the clearing she used far too often as her refuge.

She stumbled and fell as she reached its isolated embrace, sobs wracking her body as she supported herself on hands and knees. She cried out to whatever being may have been listening to her as she wept. “I summon today all these powers between me and these evils: against every cruel and merciless power that may oppose my body and my soul-argh!” The scream tore from her throat, any attempt at formal prayer cast aside in her grief.  

“Maker, why?  What did I do to make them hate me? Creators, I’ve tried.  I’ve done everything they want, and they turn from me more, and they hurt my Babae, and please, please make the hurting stop.  Please.”  Her cries choked her, and she felt as if she was ripping in two, the pain was so great. “Please, please, make it stop.”  She was a little child again, lost in the dark as the demons chased her in her dreams.

Strong arms came around her then; the smell of elfroot and arbor’s blessing wrapping her in its soothing familiarity. “Oh, my poor Da’lath’in.  My daughter.”  And just as when she was a child, he whispered a song into her hair as the angst poured itself out of her.

“I can’t, Babae.  I’m not strong enough for this.”

“Shh, you are.  You could unite nations if given the opportunity.  You have persevered and grown, beyond my wildest dreams.”  He rocked her back and forth.  “You are as strong as your mother, as stubborn as your father,” he said with a hint of a smile.  “I just wish I could have made life easier for you.  Maybe I should have left them when I found you.”

She shook her head, still buried against his chest.  “You couldn’t, because it would be wrong. They needed you; they still need you. I’m sorry I’ve made it worse for you here.”

Abruptly he stopped his gentle sway and set her away from him.  “Rowan Amaranth Lavellan.  Look at me.” His eyes were serious, almost stern.  “You have done nothing, nothing to apologize for.  You brought me out of the darkness of despair and gave me hope.  You are a wonder and a joy and I could not be prouder of you.  You are my daughter.  Never forget that, never doubt that I love you more deeply than anything in this world or the next.”  His voice and expression gentled.  “You are precious to me, my Da’lin, and I will always be with you.”

The unshed tears made her eyes glisten.  “Thank you, Babae.” She sniffled, trying to bring herself under control. “I feel like such a child.”

“You feel deeply, care so much.  Sometimes the dam simply breaks because it cannot hold any more emotion.”  He brushed her hair back, and handed her a kerchief from his pocket.  It, too, smelled faintly of herbs, as she used it to wipe away her tears.

“How did you get so wise?”

“I became a father.”

Together they made their way back to camp, where Rowan picked up her staff that had been left on the ground by the Keeper and the rest of the clan, a signal that the battle was over.  There would be more, she knew; it was only a matter of time before something else she did drove the Keeper to ‘teach’ her once more.  But the sound of her father’s voice singing as he prepared poultices kept her from despair.  Eventually she joined in his tune, a hearty Ferelden tune that undoubtedly drove the elves to distraction.  And she didn’t give a damn for any of them as the chorus rang out to the stars.

\------

The songs stopped with his death.  

Around her, she dimly registered that there were noises, the cries of anger as they pulled the aravel away.  But she knew he was gone, knew the moment his spirit left his body, because her heart ceased beating and she fell to her knees.

“No.  No, Babae.” The words were barely a whisper, a sound that could have been the wind flapping the sails of the land ships.  No one heard her as grief turned her cold.  Their healer was dead, and while they didn’t care for him, they needed him, and he had left them all bereft.

“Falon’din guide him into the Fade, and may the Dread Wolf never hear his footsteps.” The Keeper had come up behind her, watching the Dalish as they tried in vain to bring him back, to see if he was still alive under the wreckage.  They both knew the others tried in vain.

“Come away, Rowan. There is nothing you can do for him anymore.”  It was the closest the woman had ever come to being gentle with the young mage, and it made her look up from her position on the ground.

“He’s gone,” she said, grief striking her dumb.  She would never hear his voice again, never feel his arms embrace her.

“Yes.”  It was so cold, so detached, that Rowan couldn’t quite grasp it. She stood, and Deshanna put a hand on her shoulder, steering her away from the carnage of the broken body that had once housed her entire world.

“What will I do now?”  Shock had set in, and with it a sort of swirling void that whistled across her soul like a wind across a desert.

“You will continue to be First, continue to train to take your place leading this clan.  There are tensions amongst the shem that are threatening to boil over.  We must be prepared for that.”  They entered the Keeper’s tent, the older woman waving off the other elves who were gathering to speak to her of what to do next, what preparations needed to be made.

“Stay here, and I will prepare the funeral rites for him.”  She nodded slightly, everything still detached and far away.  

But as Istimaethoriel turned away, a thought came to Rowan. “Arbor blessing.”

The Keeper turned back.  “What was that?”

“It needs to be arbor blessing on his grave. Please.”  The ‘please’ cracked, and the tears finally came.

“As you wish, Sael.”  She left the young woman to her grief, and went to prepare another of the People for his eternal rest.

\------

Rowan went through the motions from that point on.  She was still the dedicated First, still did everything that was asked of her and more, but the hostility that was barely concealed with her father living made itself fully known after his death.  The others in the clan barely spoke to her, except to mock or admonish her outsider status, and lament loudly the fact that with her father gone, she really had no place among them, no tie to their blood.

Even the Keeper, who for a while seemed to take a new view of her charge, quickly reverted to her previous stance when it was so easy to fall in line with the views of the others.  Her lessons became harder, and more unforgiving, but she answered them all with everything she had.  All she had was her magic and her memories, and only one left her dry-eyed when she brought it to the forefront.

One of the other, lesser-skilled mages in the clan started making noises about wanting to be trained as Rowan had been. After all, she was fully of the Lavellan blood, and shouldn’t that warrant at least the same treatment as the outsider?  And so, Rowan’s lessons went from punishing to non-existent.  And she knew, dimly, that it was only a matter of time until the title of First was stripped from her as well.

A year after her father’s death, Deshanna summoned her to the Keeper’s tent.  At that moment, she was sure that the end was near, that she would be left with no role, and then no home.  “Yes, Amelan, how may I serve?”

The Keeper watched as the new apprentice still struggled a week into her training to summon the focus ball that would be central to her studies, barely looking up at her First as she entered.  “There is to be a gathering of the shemlen, at the temple of that round-eared deity that you venerate, Andraste.”  She said the name with the same inflection one would give a poison.  “As my First, and with your. . .unique. . .perspective, I believe it would be prudent for you to attend this meeting.  Unofficially, of course.  And then I want you to report back to me what you find.  What happens at this. . .conclave, will likely have ramifications that will affect all of us.”

Rowan blinked.  This was not what she had expected.  “When am I to go, Keeper?”

“At first light.  You will be traveling to an area outside a town called Haven.  That is where this meeting is to be held.  If anyone asks, you’re attempting to establish trade with the townspeople.  With as many people as should be attending, there likely won’t be many questions asked, and since you have no Vallaslin, well, you’ll be nothing but a flat-ear. . .to them, of course.”

She bristled, but didn’t fight back.  So much of the fight had left her. “Yes, Deshanna.  I will gather my things and begin my journey.  Thank you for the opportunity to serve you in this capacity.”

“Yes, well. . .it needs to be done, and I can spare you.”  She glanced back down at her new charge.  “Again.  You will get this.  You want to move up in your position in the clan, don’t you?” she said pointedly.

Rowan turned to leave, and as she did, the green ball again lit up, as it had all those years ago, and rolled off the table.  The mage in training let out a gasp of surprise, but the Keeper reached down and picked it up, shaking her head.  Just a spark of spirit, nothing more.  The outsider was not destined for more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [Fenxshiral](http://archiveofourown.org/users/FenxShiral/pseuds/FenxShiral) for Project Elvhen. Any mistakes or liberties I've taken are my own.
> 
> Translations:
> 
> Ir abelas, ‘ma vhenan : I'm sorry, my heart.  
> lethal’lin : blood kin  
> shem, shemlen: quick, a derogatory term for humans  
> asha’lan: daughter  
> esha'lin: child  
> da'lin: person (diminutive)  
> Babae/Bae: Father/Daddy  
> Da’lath’in: Little heart  
> Arlathvhen: A meeting of the Dalish clans  
> ala'syl'ise'man'thanelan: Elemental mage  
> banal: nothing  
> Vallaslin: blood writing, the distinctive Dalish markings  
> teldirthalelan : one who will not learn; a fool  
> Fen’harel ver na: Dread wolf take you.  
> Amelan: Keeper  
> Sael: First
> 
> In addition, the song that Revasan sings to Rowan is called[Dún do Shúil](http://songsinirish.com/p/dun-do-shuil-lyrics.html), an Irish lullaby. There are simply not enough Elvish songs, so I took some liberties. :)
> 
> ETA: One other note, for those who may be as geeky as I am. The prayer that Rowan begins saying (and which will show up in Where Legend Remains) is called [Fáed Fíada, "The Deer's Cry,"](http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/p03.html) a work attributed to St. Patrick. It's ancient and mystical enough that I felt it was appropriate for a Dalish mage who needs a prayer beyond her clan's veneration to the Creators or the Chant.


End file.
